Slade
by D-Annelise
Summary: Slade remains one of the few villians the Titans could never quite defeat. Now, weakened by the Brotherhood of Evil and loaded down by the newest Titans, will he be able to completely destroy them?
1. Disaster

**Disclaimer: The Teen Titans belong to DC Comics… and since I own no part of DC Comics, I obviously don't own the Teen Titans.**

**A/N: This does take place almost right after the series ended, however (since Things Change really didn't cover this), I'm going to have it that all the new Titans are temporarily staying at the Tower until they're trained fully.**

**Disaster**

_I live to hide, I'm weak and shrewd  
I don't suppose you'd know  
I've hidden behind these frigid eyes  
They filter what I know  
**Save Me**_**, Alter Bridge**

The plan was too simply brilliant. Something the Brotherhood of Evil would have laughed at. But, then, they were the ones permanently frozen in their own headquarters and Slade was the one walking around freely.

And, at the end of it all, who had faced the Titans more times than he had and survived? All he had to do was thin the ranks a little. While he could easily deal with the new, _amateur _Titans, there was just no sport it in. It was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.

The plan had been in the works since Terra. She'd been essential really, in getting the antibodies into the Titans. After all, Slade _knew_ that if they trusted her that easily, it would only be a matter of time until they got enough dead weight on the time. And then, well, only a matter of time until they were temporarily weakened by some battle or another. Even if he had to orchestrate that battle.

As it was, the time had come sooner rather than later. The team was weighed down with enough Titans to hamper their effectiveness against him. And, he was lucky enough that it happened to coincide with the Brotherhood of Evil battle. Or rather, it was because of that battle.

Not that he much cared how or why the two events had occurred. All he cared about was the fact that it was the perfect time to attack the Titans. To poison the excess, to all attack them when they were at their weakest.

And it didn't hurt that Beast Boy was not at his top fighting form because of the little Terra incident. Not that Beast Boy had been much of a threat to start with… but he did distract the real threats when they were trying to protect him.

Poisoning the Titans had been almost too easy. They were teenagers, in the long run, all Slade had to do was hit them where it hurt most: the pizza they ate almost daily. He'd found it almost depressingly simple to sneak into the pizza parlor and poison their order.

As long as it didn't hurt the regular Titan, they were too vital for the continuation of his legacy. They were trained, they were easy to persuade, and they had dark sides to rival his own. At least, it would all work out if morals didn't get in the way.

And it wasn't like he had any morals to start with. So that problem was solved.

Of course, there was the small problem of the Titans figuring out what he was up to. As far as he knew, Beast Boy was the only one who even knew that he was around – and he was in no condition to talk. But Slade had no idea how long he could keep it a secret.

And that other small problem of poisoning his own son. Not that he'd ever claim to be a perfect father – or even a half-way decent father. But he didn't know if he could possibly poison Jericho. Whether or not the boy had decided to denounce his assassin heritage.

Those were just two hurdles he would have to deal with when it came to it. After all, it would still be a while off before the poison really started taking hold. And then there was mobilizing the androids. He had time to deal with it.

Even after those problems, the plan was still _almost_ fool-proof. Slade had the only antidote to the poison. And despite the fact that it was slow-acting, there wouldn't be enough time for the Titans to identify the poison and figure out how to counteract it.

Not to mention, he still had one more thing to hold over their heads: Terra. Her amnesia would easily fall apart with the right trigger, and he had triggers by the handfuls. There was no doubt they wanted her back, if only for Beast Boy's sake.

Slade considered it a fair trade, at least: Terra and her memories or the antidote for the ever-lasting loyalty of the original Titans. Their lives, their souls would be his in a matter of months. And after five years, that time would fly by.

Really, if it wasn't for the fact that the majority of the villains worth a damn had gotten themselves frozen, Slade would have attempted to sell off everyone but Robin. But only Brother Blood was left. And he had no desire to ally himself with a man who couldn't even hold on to his own students, who were much less willful to than the Titans.

That was just the way things went. And it wasn't like Slade couldn't use five apprentices; it would just be more difficult to make sure they were all obeying him. Maybe he needed to put just a tad more research into this, ferret out their weaknesses.

Not that he already didn't know most of their weaknesses. Each other. Batman. Himself. Trigon. Blackfire. Terra. Brother Blood. The want to be normal. _Themselves_. It followed all the information he had on them, all their battles, their families… They left a paper trail that made it way too easy.

But, well, they would learn soon enough: how not to let their weakness show. It would just take a little _conditioning_. Time he was willing to put into them in order to have actual apprentices, ones that took little time in training.

It was thrilling, almost as exhilarating as a fight: all this planning and plotting. Not to mention the art of the slow, painful death; exploiting every weakness… Even the agonizing slow pace of time couldn't take away from that twisted ecstasy.

All of this was, in fact, what Slade lived for. A perfectly controlled chaos, a completely contained mess, a disaster planned to perfection… This time there would be no allowance for failure, no way for the Titans to thwart him. It was all or nothing. And he was going to crush their spirits like bugs.


	2. Training

**Disclaimer: I had fish named after Teen Titans, once… but my cat ate them. It didn't count for owning them anyway.**

**Training**

_It's like you're a drug  
It's like you're a demon I can't face down  
It's like I'm stuck  
It's like I'm running from you all the time  
**Addicted**_**, Kelly Clarkson**

Raven officially declared Robin re-obsessed with Slade when Robin started waking everybody up four the four AM training session. Not as a bad thing, but as a statement of an undeniable fact. After all, the only way to get the newest Titans in shape for whatever stronger villain to come next was through the intensity that Robin had constantly put the original Titans under to beat Slade.

Two hours into the session, Raven, like everyone else, was starting to change her mind about the necessity of tough training sessions.

"For the record," Jinx called over her shoulder to Kid Flash, keeping a barrier of bad luck between her and the androids they were using for training, "if I _wanted_ to have a dictator run my life, I would have stayed with Blood. At least we got to sleep until five."

"Look at it this way, you're on the good side now," Kid Flash called back grinning. "The bad guys are always the ones to go to jail."

Groaning, Jinx broke the floor under a small group of androids. "Yipee."

"Less talking, more fighting," Robin ran past the two, slicing through the chests of even more androids as he went.

"Does _anybody_ know how to stop him?" Bumblebee called from the other side of the room where she was slowly being backed into a corner by an advancement of androids. "Because he seriously _needs_ an off-switch!"

Beast Boy shrugged, luring another group of androids to where Raven and Starfire were waiting to blast them. "We blew up his hair gel once. He had a nervous breakdown and gave up for all of two days."

"Dude, we are _so_ not trying that again. I still have bruises from the first time," Cyborg shouted.

Turning his attention skyward, Cyborg cupped his mouth and called up, "Yo, Star, Rae, what do you say to ending this now and calling an intervention on Robin?"

"I got the androids if Starfire gets Robin," Raven nodded, already allowing her soul self to split from her body.

Starfire nodded and started her descent to the floor of the training room, dodging the various exhausted Titans and the androids that were falling under Raven's direction. Upon reaching her goal, the alien caught Robin around the waist, covering his mouth as she flew up towards the ceiling and the portal Raven had kindly provided to get to the roof. Almost as soon as she had lighted upon the roof, Beast Boy and Cyborg also came through the portal, just in time to restrain Robin from attacking Starfire.

"Robin, you _need_ to calm down," Raven joined them on the roof, closing the portal behind her and sealing them off in a dome so none of the others could overhear. "You're pushing them too hard, too fast. They'll be burned out before Slade ever gets the chance to touch them."

Robin rounded on her, fighting against Cyborg and Beast Boy's hold. "And if I don't push them, then how are they going to learn to _beat_ Slade? Or any other villain for that matter?" he demanded of the half-demon angrily.

"Dude, they're not learning anything," Beast Boy informed Robin before shifting into a gorilla to get a stronger hold on him.

"Yeah, man, the guys that can do anything against those androids just kicked butt, but there are still several that are powerless against them," Cyborg growled, pushing Robin back from the two girls.

"Agreed," Starfire murmured. "The Kid Flash and Mas y Menos could do little to stop the robots and spent much time outrunning them. And Jericho seemed very scared because he cannot possess an android."

"Let's not forget the fact that Kole sent Gnarrk home so she's simply turning into a crystal and hoping that's enough not to get hurt," Raven injected.

"Or Slade's brilliance in making the androids waterproof and immune to your tech. Aqualad and Speedy are _useless_ against them," Cyborg continued.

"And Herald can only send so many through a portal at a time," Raven kept going on with the list, counting on her fingers the number of powers that were useless.

"Then they should _learn_ to use their bodies as weapons. None of us are guaranteed that our powers will work in the face of any villain, and especially in the face of _Slade_," Robin hissed, finally breaking free form Beast Boy and Cyborg.

"Robin, they need to be taught," Starfire said softly, placing her hand on Robin's shoulder.

Beast Boy nodded, reverting back to human. "Dude, they haven't come from Batman or the Doom Patrol or the Olympics or the monks of Azarath or a weird little super strong planet thingy."

Raven rolled her eyes, hitting Beast Boy in the back of the head. "We all _know_ where we learned to fight, you idiot."

"The fact is, they learned from some of the best too… Green Arrow, Aquaman, the Flash, Brother Blood, Madame Rouge, the Master…" Robin glowered at them.

"And did they train so hard against sims that it hurt to _blink_? Did they take every self-defense class this city had to offer?" Cyborg glowered right back. "Man, face it, we have trained ourselves harder than any of the first generation of heroes even tried to do."

"Because they don't have Slade," Robin pushed Cyborg. "They had the Brotherhood of Evil and Lex Luthor, and they look like freakin' _angels_ compared so some of the villains we've faced."

"And that gives you the _right_ to put them up against Slade's androids with no forewarning and knowing that it's hard for _us_ to take them out and we've faced them for two years straight?" Raven crossed her arms over her chest.

Robin ground his teeth and fumed silently, looking over at Starfire for support. "Fine, tomorrow we'll do evaluations of what they already know and design programs around that." With that, he stalked across the roof to the stairs leading back to the Tower, the alien close behind him to make sure he was okay.

"I thought he was over Slade," Raven said softly as soon as the two were out of earshot.

"So did I," Cyborg shrugged.

Beast Boy bit his lip and looked down, toeing the metal on the roof of the Tower. "When I was trying to figure out what was wrong with Terra, I ran into Slade," he said softly. "I may have mentioned it to Robin…"

Raven sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "And so close to the final battle with the Brotherhood, I'm sure he's freaked about what may happened to the new Titans because so many were caught."

"Don't you just love homecomings," Cyborg bit out sarcastically.

* * *

Meanwhile, the other Titans had crowded into the living room. As many as could fit were sprawled over the couch in a half asleep state and the others had made themselves comfortable on the kitchen chairs that had been pulled in and the floor. 

"Anybody have any ideas what's up with Robin?" Hot Spot broke the half awake stupor, shifting slightly and making himself comfortable against Bumblebee's legs.

Bumblebee shrugged from her position sprawled across Aqualad and Speedy. "Sparky once told me something about this Slade guy who ate them from the inside out three times. And I overheard BB and Robin talking about Slade earlier… Maybe that has something to do with it."

Only half paying attention to the conversation, Speedy played with a lock of Bumblebee's hair and groaned slightly. "Do you have to call him 'Sparky'? I mean, is it really so hard for you to say _Cyborg_?"

"It's because she _loves_ him," Aqualad pointed out, yawning.

"And I think you three have spent way too much time together, luvs," Argent cut into their conversation, leaning over the back of the couch from her chair.

Grinning slightly, Bumblebee closed her eyes. "We spent two years in the same Tower with only two hyperactive six-year-olds, who incidentally don't know English. It was inevitable."

"So, does anyone think that Robin's going to make us train anymore?" Kid Flash asked from the floor where he was half sleeping. "I mean, it's like – what? six? – that's when training with the Flash always started."

"As long as I'm not forced to sit through classes on the art of warfare while some kid in the back row makes comments about how spandex makes girls' breasts look, I'm happy," Jinx shrugged, leaning back on her elbows. "Training was the fun part of the day at the Hive."

"Yeah, sure, for _you_, you were like… the star of the school," Bumblebee grumbled, pillowing her head on Aqualad's shoulder. "The rest of us were forced to watch videos of how well you guys did and then learn from it."

Hot Spot made a face. "This whole secret past with the Titans is starting to drive me completely nuts."

Argent laughed, covering her mouth with her hand politely. "It may annoy the others too, if they were awake," she informed him, kicking Kilowatt's chair out from under him to prove a point. The young hero seemed completely oblivious.

"Maybe he has the right idea," Herald nodded towards the heap that was Kilowatt. "Sleep sounds good… at least until Robin decides to freak out again."

* * *

Slade carefully illuminated the Brotherhood of Evil's Paris base, looking over to the two mercenaries he'd hired. It wasn't that he particularly _needed_ the mercenaries, but that he had to test them before he carried on with replacing them. Admittedly, the two had been out of his control for years, however, there was nothing wrong with a little test every once in awhile. 

"Tell me, what do you see?" Slade motioned towards the main room of the base, examining every inch of the destruction the Titans had caused.

Deathstroke crossed his arms and examined the room. "The fighters had great power. But it was un-harnessed, virtually useless for anything other than complete destruction."

"The Brotherhood underestimated them too," Ravager climbed up onto the shelves, flipping her hair back and examining the rows of frozen villains. "They intended to use this freezing system to destroy the Titans, and had it turned against them. It might have helped if they had made sure to get all of them… but I'm not certain if that was their failing."

"Good, good," Slade nodded, kicking a stray bit of tile into a hole. "And where were the Titans weaknesses."

Frowning, Ravager knelt on one shelf, examining a burn mark. "Looks like Mas y Menos were key to getting the Titans unfrozen. The only ones who can speed up molecules enough to break through this ice-stuff. But they and several others seemed to weigh the team down in the first place. I say, don't split them up and wait for them to get too cocky and slip up – not just for Mas y Menos, but for all the dead weight, if not all the Titans."

Nodding his agreement, Deathstroke examined the frozen Brotherhood of Evil, trying to figure out how long they'd been out compared to the others. "They didn't know who to hit first. Had they gotten the original Brotherhood of Evil, the others would be like a headless chicken. Easy enough for _anyone_ to take down."

Slade smirked beneath his mask, "And your suggestions for taking them out?"

"Your poison idea is a great way to get the Titans to come to you," Ravager said, jumping off the shelf. "But you need a way to make them stay with you."

Deathstroke nodded, idly knocking the frozen Brain over and watching the glass shatter within its icy confines. "Hit them were they're weakest. Their wants, their needs. Hold it over their heads until they are completely yours – mind, body, and soul," he contemplated while walking around the Brotherhood of Evil, breaking off a couple of Madame Rouge's fingers for the fun of it.

"You two are well on your way to surpassing your master," Slade crossed his arms and started to make his way out of the room. "I believe I'm leaving the future of vice in good hands."


End file.
